Don't Leave Me
by Aisling Yinyr Ngaio
Summary: Oneshot. My take on what happened at the end of Disc 1. Rinoa knew she felt more for Squall the moment she saw him falling off the parade float with the Ice Strike still in his body.


**Don't Leave Me  
**_An FFVIII fanfic by Aisling Yinyr Ngaio_**  
**_Pairing: Squall x Rinoa_**  
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_No, no, no! _Rinoa's mind couldn't process what she was seeing. _Surely… it cannot be… how… how could the Sorceress's Ice Strike plunge into Squall?_

She was numb, she couldn't move. It was… it was beyond impossible! Squall had always been able to carry out orders with unerring accuracy. Give him a job, and he'd do it, no questions asked, with top results, whether it required stealth or brute force. In all of their battles, she had never seen him back down from a challenge, or defeated. He had always emerged triumphant, even against GFs in their home territory. And he had saved her from being killed by those monsters, not half an hour ago. He had saved _her_. So how… how could this have happened?

As she stood there, screaming his name in an anguished, terrible voice, Squall stumbled a few steps back in pain, and, stepping over the edge, began to fall. At this, Rinoa seemed to come to life, and rushed towards him. But she was too late; he was already falling off the parade float, down… down… down… and she could no longer reach him. Even if she could, to what end? How could she pull him up when he was still carrying that shoulder injury, and being so much heavier than she could withstand? Tears blinding her eyes as she leaned over the parade float, stretched her arm out as if to reach him, screamed his name and willed him to respond.

_He can't be dead! He just can't! Please Squall, please don't be dead! I…_

_I won't allow it!_ "SQUALL!"

Forcefully she pulled herself together. Perhaps she couldn't fight alone, but this… Squall couldn't die! _Never, never!_ Judging it too late to cast _Float_ to make his descent easier, Rinoa quickly jumped down the eight-feet-tall parade float, landing close to Squall. Immediately, she ran the last few steps to his prone body, calling his name over and over again, and willing him not to surrender to the darkness. Taking in the situation at a glance, she saw that the Ice Strike was dislodged slightly from the impact of Squall's fall, and he was grimacing in pain. At the sound of her voice, he cracked open his lids, and looked at her with torture-filled blue eyes.

Immensely relieved that he wasn't too far gone, she whispered urgently to him, "I'm going to pull out the ice, and then I'll cure you, all right, Squall?" She winced as the slight nod Squall gave her in return sent another shard of pain through him, deepening his grimace. Gripping the Ice Strike, she said softly, almost apologetically, "I'm sorry, but this might be painful." Then, charging _Cura_ in her other hand, she pull the ice out in one swift stroke and cast the healing magic almost immediately after. At the further movement of the Ice Strike from his body, however, Squall could no longer tolerate the pain, as he had been doing from the moment the Ice Strike pierced him, and let out a last scream into the night air. Succumbing to the shock and bleeding from the now opened wound caused by the Sorceress's vicious attack, he passed out on the floor of the Arch of Triumph.

"Squall! NO! Please, no. Wake up!" Rinoa pleaded, praying over and over again that he was still alive, as she continued focusing the _Cura_s onto the affected area in order to close Squall's shoulder wound more rapidly. As thankful as she was that the Ice Strike didn't pierce Squall's heart, it was a near run thing. And anything that could cause Squall to pass out was unthinkable. Rinoa knew that they couldn't afford the time necessary for a Phoenix Down to take effect, with them in the heart of enemy territory. As absorbed as she was at her task, she failed to even realise that the Galbadian soldiers, who were restraining the citizens and other parade watchers in an effort to enforce emergency curfew, were now running purposefully towards the Arch. She could not hear the gunfire still sounding on the float above her, of Irvine continuing to make a last, though possibly fatal, stand against the Sorceress. She could not even sense the gateway team members' presences, who were alerted by her initial scream that all was not going well with the assassination operation, and was now protecting her and their squad leader as she worked her magic. But though they were SeeDs, combat specialists, they were no match against wave after wave of Galbadian soldiers, who came not in groups of threes or fours, but teams of ten or more at one time.

_Please, please, please, let him be alive. I will do anything, or pay any price, if he only lives. Squall, please... I lo-  
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Shaking her head as if to clear the thoughts that should have no place here, she concentrated instead on completing the last healing spell. At last, with three _Cura_s cast onto Squall, the wound was finally mended, leaving only the slightest indication of another scar through his torn jacket that would probably be with him always. Like the other, more prominently displayed one, they would always serve as reminders of the battles he had fought and survived… if survived he did. But as she moved her fingers to his neck to check for his pulse point, she was roughly grabbed and forced backwards, away from Squall, by multiple strong arms that could only belong to SeeDs… or that man's meticulously trained army. Desperately, Rinoa struggled with them, all the while trying fruitlessly to go back to the side of that someone she needed most…

"LET ME GO! I SAID LET GO! SQUALL! SQUALL!" She called frantically, alternating between kicking and scratching the nearest reachable soldier, and trying to slip from their strong grips. Out of the corner of her eyes, she could see the other three SeeDs taking on what looked like half a battalion of soldiers, but were quickly getting overwhelmed as the soldiers advanced nearer and nearer to them, forcing them back and into a tight corner. Fighting like a wildcat herself struggling to get free, she was nevertheless powerless to fight against at least three of the Galbadian soldiers when one of them forcibly straightened her arm, allowing a fourth soldier to inject her with some liquid. She flinched as she registered the needle's pin prick. And then her world turned to black.

– _Finis –_


End file.
